BLOGGING THE HUNGER GAMES, pt. 18: Ascending Melody

So. Rue got killed. Whoa! I was definitely expecting an extended, Huck Finn-like bonding experience to take place over a few episodic adventures. But nope! Damn, how depressing would have like, The Fox and The Hound been if the Hound got a spear through the chest in the first ten minutes? But this is kind of a good decision. I mean, it's sad, sure, but it rescues The Hunger Games from reading like the novelization of an action movie based on a videogame. In this chapter alone Katniss feels a bunch of complex emotions and then has a minor political awakening! Take that, video games!

And then something incredibly stupid and cheap happens and kind of invalidates all the strides this chapter made. Ah, well. Previous entries can be found here.

Chapter 18

Dig the first two sentences:

The boy from District 1 dies before he can pull out the spear. My arrow drives deeply into the center of his neck.

There are like fifty cool things about this. First of all, it conveys the abruptness of the kid's death by almost putting the two sentences in the wrong order; we know he's dead before we know what killed him. That's how fast Katniss offed this mope! Second of all, it conveys the confusion of the whole scene: Katniss runs toward Rue who is under a net, a spear drives into Rue. Katniss is still calibrating exactly what is happening while she starts killing. Third of all, it's interesting and great that Katniss just barely acknowledges her own complicity in the murder. It's her arrow, but she doesn't say anything about shooting it. It's significant because in a few pages Katniss will call this boy her “first kill” and experience a measure of remorse. Here, it hasn't quite dawned on her.

(Of course, Katniss mentions off-handedly the two girls who died as a result of her little wasp prank, apparently not considering those to be murder. Well that is extremely fucking arguable Katniss! But ANYWAY.)

The kid yanks the arrow out of his neck and dies “drowning in his own blood” (My throat hurts now). A dying Rue manages to convey to Kat that there are no other attackers. That's pretty weird, right? This kid from District 1 managed to figure out that Katniss and Rue were working together and then set a trap for Katniss? Is that even what happened? It's implied later that he was affiliated with the main gang of Careers. But where are the rest of them? What's the point of traveling in a pack if you don't...travel in a pack? I can't figure out if I like the semi-nonsensical out-of-nowhereness of this scene or if I find it too implausible.

And then Katniss and Rue have a tearful goodbye. Katniss sees that the wound is fatal and Rue asks her to sing to her. So she does, and at the end of Katniss's simple lullaby (“Deep in the meadow, hidden far away...forget your woes and let your troubles lay...”) Rue's eyes close and a cannon sounds. It's quiet and affecting and only a little heavy-handed.

My throat is tight with tears, hoarse from smoke and fatigue. But if this is Prim's, I mean, Rue's last request, I have to at least try.

She reminds her of her sister WE GOT IT. Katniss gets up and looks at Rue's helpless body, and even the “vulnerable in death” corpse of the boy from D1, and feels a surge of anger at the Capitol. She thinks of Gale's ravings in the woods and then of Peeta's desire to “show the Capitol they don't own” him (Peeta would totes be in a sleeping bag at Occupy Wall Street right now by the way, with one of those slightly crass “Debt=Slavery” signs, probably). And suddenly the political views of the men in her life make sense to her.

OK, so this is problematic, right? Gale and Peeta are her political influences? Couldn't it at least have been Cinna? Also, I mean, the original image we got of Katniss was that she was a political rebel too. When she was a kid her mother had to teach her to hold her tongue lest she slander the government in public! She was raging against the machine straight out the womb! But somewhere along the way, that got lost in the shuffle; Katniss was too busy to surviving to worry about big picture and/or Suzanne Collins was too busy writing to remember the early stuff.

Katniss gathers some wildflowers and arranges them on Rue's body, knowing that the Capitol cameras will have to show her funeral in some fashion. She's calling attention to the horrific violence of the whole affair, sort of, but decorating the other dead dude's body might have underscored that point a little better. Because this display will either make the viewers at home realize what a sad, evil enterprise the Hunger Games are OR it will make them extra hungry for Katniss to get revenge.

Suzanne Collins seems to be skirting that line too, because Katniss wanders aimlessly through the woods, mired in depression but nonetheless resolute in her conviction to kill anyone who should cross her path. She blames the Capitol, but the Careers are a good enough substitute on which to project her rage (for now?). She walks on, and soon a gift from a sponsor floats down in front of her: a roll she recognizes as originating from Rue's district. Wow, a piece of bread! Is there a gun hidden inside it? No? What the fuck?

It's a thank you from Rue's people, and Katniss is grateful even though she recognizes that it was probably intended for Rue and then hastily re-gifted. Way to be classy about it, Kat! She's totally the kind of girl who does an awesome job at getting shitty presents on her birthday. “Oh, a t-shirt with sequins that spell 'Key West'! Thanks, grandma, this is so cool!” She thanks “the people of District 11” out loud, which is a real suave diplomatic move. Then she goes to bed “the bread still locked in my hands.” I'm kind of worried she's going to drop it, aren't you? I've been falling asleep with drinks in my hand a lot lately, so that's probably why.

The next day Katniss is depressed and has to drag herself around. She has the aforementioned realization that she killed someone, and is then deeply troubled by it. Not to pile on, Katniss, but you should also feel bad about the girl that you reduced to a pile of swollen flesh and pus! She builds a fire and cooks a few birds, hoping to lure a few Careers in. Again there's the slightly awkward but mostly interesting balance between her supposed infinite sadness and obvious bloodlust. It's necessary, story-wise, but is also fairly believable, character-wise.

And Collins has been generally good at necessity/believability balance, so far. AND THEN WHOOPS: Katniss climbs a tree and starts to fall asleep, but there's an announcement. One of the Gamemakers explains that there's been a rule change, and if two people from one district are the last ones standing they'll BOTH WIN.

...Are you fucking kidding me? The basis for most of the tension in this book has NOT “will Katniss win the Hunger Games or not?” It's been “When Katniss inevitably DOES win the Hunger Games, will she have to kill Peeta to do it?” All the ambiguity of their relationship* was pointing toward that one moment, which obviously won't happen now. Suzanne Collins just pulled the rug out from under us. WORST TWIST EVER.

("Does Peeta love Katniss?" is not very interesting, right? But "Will Katniss kill Peeta without ever coming to a full understanding of his feelings for and gestures toward her?" is SUPER INTERESTING! Now all we have left is how serious his crush is. "[JERKING OFF HAND GESTURE]"-Alice Cullen!)

Stray Notes & Questions

• UGH! Did that shit make you as mad as it made me?
• When Katniss says goodbye to Rue, she does the three-fingered kiss-blow thing everyone did for her at the Reaping. It's a pretty great callback, especially when you consider that it's been over 200 pages since it last happened. I like that Suzanne Collins trusts in the intelligence of her audience a little. Above huge betrayal aside, I mean.
• This week's new record is Feist's “Metals.” Remember Feist? She's back! In pog form! No, but really, the album is OK. Sometimes it sounds like she just walked back and forth in front of a microphone (the variation in volume is ridiculous) wailing (much like the tail end of “The Reminder” a lot of this record is Feist indulging in her worst impulses, singing-wise) but “The Bad In Each Other” is a pretty good tune.
• I'm going camping for a few days, so this will be the last post until Sunday-ish. Have a good weekend!